Thought in Development

Dr James Cheng Grant Success

Dr James Cheng, Senior Lecturer in GIS (Geographic Information System) and Urban Planning, has achieved success in his grant application.

The British Academy’s Research Awards Committee have awarded Dr Cheng a small research grant for a project entitled ‘Inequities in the perceived environmental health risks and interventions in a fast developing country’. The project is led by Dr Cheng through collaboration with Prof Qiyan Wu at Nanjing Normal University, China.

Dr Cheng’s main research interests lie in urbanization in China, particularly its social and spacial implications, including inequity, segregation, urban sustainability and migration using GIS and other quantitative methods.

He says: “Chinese cities have experienced notorious environmental degradations, which have had considerable negative impact on residents’ health. This has stimulated an increase in public environmental awareness”.

“As people perceive, experience and prevent environmental pollutions differently, vulnerable and disadvantaged people may be exposed to higher levels of health risks than the rest. This raises an urgent question: do perceived environmental health risks and intervention demonstrate any inequities in Chinese cities?”.

Dr Cheng believes that “The answers to this question will contribute to the global theories of environmental injustice”.

Through the project, Dr Cheng aims to provide scientific and quantitative evidence for understanding the social and spatial inequities in perceived environmental health risks and interventions by producing a case study based on China.

He says “The research outcome is expected to influence central and local environment related policy making and people’s everyday life across China”.